Normally the performances staged at Berlin's trendy, experimental GRIPS Theater play to a full house, but on June 9, the day of the World Cup's opening match between Germany and Costa Rica, only 30 spectators showed up in a theater with a seating capacity for 360 adults. "We even delayed the play by a half-hour to 8:00 p.m., but that didn't help", joked Volker Ludwig, a playwright and founder of GRIPS, who stayed home to watch soccer.

"If our audience consisted of the conservative opera crowd, the World Cup would have had no impact, but our plays and musicals appeal to younger folks, who happen to be football enthusiasts", added Ludwig, who has now cancelled Die Linke Geschichte, an enormously popular cult piece, which conflicts with the quarter-finals on Friday, when the two former World Cup champions, Germany and Argentina, face off.

Dramatic drop in theatergoing

GRIPS is not the only theater to experience a dramatic drop in attendance due to World Cup fever. The 450-seat Maxim Gorki theater in Berlin, which features more mainstream classic productions, such as Harold Pinter's One for the Road, and Bertolt Brecht's Threepenny Opera, reached only two-thirds capacity on an average evening this June.

"We should have been 85% full. In June, before the big summer holidays, we normally sell well. But this year we had freezing winter weather until May. Then suddenly, summer arrived in June, so everyone wants to be outdoors, but the World Cup is also a huge factor in the drop", according to spokeswoman Claudia Nola.

Dip in movie attendance too

Balmy weather makes June a poor month for a night out at the movies anyway, but the World Cup has made attendance rates even worse, according to Jan Oesterlin, head of Zukunft Kino Marketing, an association of nationwide cinema distributors and exhibitors.

"The distributors were prepared for the downturn due to soccer, and timed the release dates of both blockbusters and smaller productions around it to optimize turnout," said Oesterlin. Thanks to two huge cash cows, Da Vinci Code and Ice Age 2, which were released in spring, movie attendance has actually increased by about 10% for the first half of this year compared to the same time period in 2005, he added.

Other summer fare, which have already played to huge audiences in North America, such as the computer-animated adventure film Cars and German director Wolfgang Petersen's thriller Poseidon have been staggered for wide release in Germany after the final on July 9.

During the World Cup, many cinema complexes and chains have decided to join the crowd, by featuring matches on the big screen free of charge, and offering moviegoers a summer festival of Oscar winning draws, such as Walk the Line or Brokeback Mountain. The expectation, of course, being that consumption of drinks and popcorn will make up for the loss in ticket sales.

Germans prefer staying homebound for the World Cup

Even the travel industry has braced itself for couch potatoes, who prefer staying home this summer. "Many major tour operators have offered deeply discounted packages before the World Cup began, in traditional mass market destinations, such as Majorca, and have assured fans that they can always watch the games on television anywhere in the world anyway", said Markus Kurscheidt, a sports economist at Ruhr-University Bochum. Still, 44% of travel agencies reported dismal bookings this month, according to FVW, a publication of the tourist trade.

Volker Ludwig of GRIPS Theater has also tried to sell out tickets in advance. "One of our most beloved musicals, Line One, which runs from July 5-8, the last week of matches, is sold out." However, one semi-final is scheduled for July 5, and on July 8, the match for third place, for which Germany could be a contender, takes place. In which case, theatregoers could wind up cheering at the nearby fan mile instead.